Budapest builds a small Dubai around a railway station. The Hungarian government announced Monday that it plans to invest six billion euros, mostly foreign funding, to build a Dubai-like skyscraper district around an abandoned Budapest train station, Bloomberg reports.
A site in northeastern Pest owned by Hungary’s national railway company is to be developed into a new district using private investment worth at least five billion euros, Hungarian Construction and Transport Minister Janos Lazar said Monday. The Hungarian government will in turn spend around €1 billion to improve infrastructure in the area, according to romanian press agency, Agerpres.
Budapest builds a small Dubai
Janos Lazar did not reveal the identity of the potential foreign investor, saying only that it is one of the largest in the world and that the deal will be subject to an intergovernmental agreement. According to reports in the Hungarian press, the investor is a company based in the United Arab Emirates.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has mandated the construction of a major project comparable to Dubai in terms of grandeur, Lazar said. Building skyscrapers in the Pest area of the Hungarian capital is currently banned, but Janos Lazar believed that the new headquarters of oil group Mol, a 143-metre building in the Buda area, inevitably paved the way for the construction of more such “horrors”.
Similar plans to develop areas around other Budapest railway stations have failed in the past. Budapest city authorities have already criticised the government’s plans for the new hub, which would alter the urban landscape in a historic part of Budapest. Janos Lazar said details of the project would be finalised in the first half of next year.
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